Short answer
There is no single answer for the event. You must split the delegate list.
Since Directive 2022/542 applied from 1 January 2025:
- Business delegates — a ticket sold to a taxable person acting as such is taxed where that customer belongs, under the general rule in Article 44. Article 53 no longer applies to virtual attendance, so the old "where the event takes place" rule is gone for online conferences. Where you are not established in the customer's Member State, Article 196 makes the customer account under the reverse charge.
- Consumer delegates — a ticket sold to a non-taxable person is taxed where that consumer is established, has a permanent address or usually resides, under the second subparagraph of Article 54(1).
For a fully online conference with delegates in twelve Member States, you therefore have reverse-charged B2B supplies plus consumer VAT at up to twelve different destination rates, reportable through the One Stop Shop.
For a hybrid conference, the physical and virtual tickets follow different rules and must be treated as separate products.
A conference ticket is not an electronically supplied service
Start here, because it removes a common wrong turn. Article 7(3)(t) of the Implementing Regulation excludes from electronically supplied services:
"tickets to cultural, artistic, sporting, scientific, educational, entertainment or similar events booked online" —
Booking online is a sales channel, not a supply classification. The supply remains admission to an event, and the event rules in Articles 53 and 54 govern it.
Article 32 of the Implementing Regulation confirms that conferences and seminars are within scope:
"Paragraph 1 shall apply in particular to: ... (c) the right of admission to educational and scientific events such as conferences and seminars." —
Article 32(1) describes the essential characteristic as granting a right of admission in exchange for a ticket or payment, including a subscription, season ticket or periodic fee.
What changed in 2025
Article 53 previously located B2B admission where the event actually took place, which for a streamed conference produced arbitrary results. Directive 2022/542 inserted a carve-out:
"This Article shall not apply to admission to the events referred to in the first paragraph where the attendance is virtual." —
With Article 53 disapplied, virtual B2B admission reverts to the general rule in Article 44 — the customer's country.
For consumers, Article 54(1) keeps the activity-location rule for physical attendance and adds a destination rule for virtual attendance, quoted above. The result is that online conference tickets are destination-taxed for both categories, but by two different routes with two different liability outcomes.
Splitting the delegate list
Establish status. Article 18 of the Implementing Regulation governs. A communicated VAT number, validated through the administrative-cooperation mechanism together with the associated name and address, supports treating the delegate as a taxable person. Where no number is communicated, Article 18(2) permits treating the customer as non-taxable — and for services under the second subparagraph of Article 54(1), the amended provision allows that irrespective of information to the contrary.
That safe harbour is useful for conference registration forms. A delegate who does not enter a VAT number can be charged consumer VAT, even if their email domain suggests a corporate employer.
Watch private use. Article 19 treats a taxable person receiving services exclusively for private use as non-taxable. A delegate attending a professional-development session at their own expense, using a company VAT number, is a case to think about rather than automate.
Locate the consumer. Article 24b applies to activities "streamed or otherwise made virtually available to a non-taxable person". The general rule requires two items of non-contradictory evidence from the Article 24f list — billing address, IP address or geolocation, bank details, SIM country code, fixed land line, or other commercially relevant information. Suppliers under the EUR 100,000 threshold may rely on one item provided by a third party involved in the supply.
The delegate's registration-form address alone is a single self-declared item. Pair it with payment-provider country data or access-time geolocation.
Hybrid conferences have two answers
Where the same event offers physical and virtual attendance, the tickets are different supplies.
- Physical attendance, business delegate — Article 53 still applies. Taxed where the event actually takes place. That normally means registering in the venue country, or relying on a local reverse-charge option where the Member State provides one under Article 194.
- Physical attendance, consumer — Article 54(1), first subparagraph. Taxed where the activity actually takes place.
- Virtual attendance — the destination rules described above.
A single conference held in Lisbon with remote delegates across the EU can therefore generate a Portuguese registration obligation for in-person tickets and OSS reporting for virtual ones. Price and invoice the two ticket types separately, and do not let a "hybrid pass" blur them without deciding whether it is one composite supply or two.
Recordings sold after the event are a third product. On-demand access with no live element is likely an electronically supplied service under Article 7, taxed under Article 58 for consumers.
Ticket resellers and intermediaries
Article 33a addresses tickets sold by someone other than the organiser:
"The supply of tickets granting access to a cultural, artistic, sporting, scientific, educational, entertainment or similar event by an intermediary acting in his own name but on behalf of the organiser or by a taxable person, other than the organiser, acting on his own behalf, shall be covered by Article 53 and Article 54(1) of Directive 2006/112/EC." —
So a reseller acting in its own name applies the same event rules as the organiser. By contrast, Article 33 states that mere intermediary services relating to the sale of tickets are not ancillary services within Article 53 — a booking fee charged transparently as agent is a separate supply on its own footing.
Reporting
Destination-taxed consumer tickets can be declared through the One Stop Shop: the Union scheme for suppliers established in the EU, the non-Union scheme for those with no EU establishment. Article 369f requires a quarterly return under the Union scheme; corrections go into a later return within three years of the original due date.
B2B tickets reverse-charged under Article 196 are excluded from OSS. They belong in your domestic return and, as cross-border services on which the customer accounts, in your recapitulative statement.
Where physical attendance creates a venue-country registration, that is an ordinary local registration outside OSS entirely.
Which dates govern
Two dates matter and they are not the same.
The rules in force are determined by the tax point, not by when the conference happens to run. For supplies before 1 January 2025, virtual B2B admission still fell within Article 53 and consumer virtual attendance generally followed Article 45. Audits and corrections covering earlier periods must apply those rules.
The customer's location should be evidenced by reference to the time of supply. For a ticket sold in November for an event in March, decide and document which moment your evidence relates to, and apply it consistently.
Operational checklist
- Treat "booked online" as irrelevant to classification; apply the event rules.
- Split registrations into business and consumer at the point of sale.
- Validate VAT numbers and store the response; charge consumer VAT where none is given.
- Capture two items of non-contradictory location evidence for consumer tickets.
- Separate physical and virtual ticket types as distinct supplies, and decide the treatment of any hybrid pass.
- Check whether the venue country requires a local registration for in-person tickets.
- Report consumer virtual tickets through OSS; keep reverse-charged B2B out of it.
- Apply pre-2025 rules to pre-2025 supplies.
Conclusion
For an online conference, ask two questions about every ticket: is the delegate a business, and where are they. The first decides whether you invoice without VAT under the reverse charge or charge destination VAT; the second decides which rate.
The 2025 amendments made the destination result consistent across business and consumer virtual attendance, which simplified the rate question but not the liability question. Hybrid events remain the genuine complexity, because the physical tickets never left Article 53 — and a venue-country registration can sit alongside an OSS return for the very same conference.
Sources
This article provides general legal information, not advice for a specific matter. Laws, facts and procedural deadlines may change the result. Follow the linked primary sources and obtain local advice before acting.